Civilization 6 Hit 100K Players For The 'First Time' Because Of Civ 7 

I know what you mean.The art style , the music , the gameplay over all

have you tried old world? its so good, made by the developer of civ 4.

Agree. Civ4 is perfect

No one should hate a game, but as someone who started with CIV3 i can understand people not liking 6, they changed the direction that worked. I like it, but 5 and 4 are better in my opinion.

That's also true when comparing Civ 5 to Civ 4. Steam made it much easier for people to jump into Civ 5, so some of the doubling is due to it releasing on Steam.

@@GamerZakh Maybe, I'm not convinced that player numbers actually increased that much between 4 and 5. Maybe paying players, but civ4 was an all physical release in the heyday of torrenting after all :P

@@Fastwinstondoom It's hard to get exact stats. Rough sales estimates puts Civ 4 at 3 million sales and Civ 5 at 8 million, but as you say piracy and 2nd hand discs etc would leave out a lot of players. That's why the polls from 2016 asked people what their first Civ game was. It focused more on when people got the game and played it, not when (if) they bought it. We couldn't just pull up Steam stats in 2016 because they wouldn't mean much. 50% said they started with Civ 5 and this is before Civ 6 released, so that wasn't an option. This was multiple polls, across multiple communities, with varying sample sizes ranging from a few hundred votes to many thousands. They all floated around half starting with Civ 5. Based on every indicator, Civ 5 doubled the Civ playerbase if not more. It being released on Steam is likely a big factor for that because of ease and accessibility. Similar to how Civ 6 increased it's playerbase significantly by releasing on consoles and the Switch. A lot of people who couldn't or couldn't be bothered to get Civ before could now just get it. Like my friend who is exclusively a Nintendo gamer. Never played a Civ game before until Civ 6 came to the Switch. Also keep in mind Civ 5 was like all other Civ games, it didn't blow up until over 2 years and 2 expansions after release. 2010-2012 was when Steam blew up, I remember I bought a Skyrim disc in 2011 and it just installed a Steam copy. Steam was becoming mandatory and Civ 5 blew up in 2013, right when everyone had been jumping onto Steam.

Haha the older millennial experience I'm thinking. You were also busy around 2010?

Yeah my friend is a Nintendo gamer so didn't think he'd be into Civ 6 but then I saw him playing it one day.

Same lol so I don't know any different. Civ vi is so gorgeous and gameplay is great. The only annoying thing is how often it crashes on switch!

I'm planning to do that, but didn't want to go in completely forgetting everything haha. So I did a casual playthrough of all the games this past month before I record anything.

@@GamerZakh oooh okok fair

This is why I play 5.

Agree. The whole game is centered around this gimmick, which takes focus from the empire management. Play Civ 4, the high point of the series.

A lot of people agree haha, I even mention that in this video.

Civ 6 has gone on 90% sale 15 times since 2022 and the latest discount was because of civ 7. People are jumping on the sale this time more than before because of Civ 7. But also the whole graph is about players not sales. You can see the launch numbers and how it tanked immediately, sales don't equal players. Civ 7's teaser trailer was published on the 7th of June with the Civ 6 sale and it's normal marketing to give a big sale when you announce the sequel because the last game becomes part of marketing. Civ 6 is still regularly crossing 80K concurrent players, and again, remember this is just Steam we don't have console numbers, of which Civ 5 has zero.

He meant that the player base increased because of the discount as it gave a chance for some players like me to try the game.

@@illuminate1306 Civ 6 went on 90% sale 15 times since 2022. Coincide it with the Civ 7 trailer and that's when it spikes to a record number. The spike is more because of Civ 7 than the sale, of course the sale helps but people are jumping on the sale this time more than before because of Civ 7.

@@toryistatertot5394 I'm not defending Civ 6 Vs Civ 5 here either. The title is just factual, that's what happened, my last Civ 7 video is more about some of my hopes for Civ 7.

@@GamerZakh I hope I didn't offend. I did think the video was decent and I did like/leave a comment to help the algorithm. I still like your videos and click when I see your channel pop up. It was just one persons opinion and most people find me wrong 56% of the time so there's that.

@@toryistatertot5394 You didn't offend no worries, I'm just clarifying what I was doing with this video.

Same here. Rather than making empire management the focus of the series, they've decided to center the latest games around a gimmick. In Civ 5 it was city-states, in Civ 6 the districts.

It tends to be like that. For Civ 4 and 5 as well, people don't really like it until the 2nd expansion releases. Civ 7 will be the same.

But Civ 5 has DLC too? All modern Civ games require 2 expansions before the game becomes 'good'. Civ 5 didn't blow up until 2013 when the second expansion released. Civ 5 also has 15 total DLC on Steam, including map packs, scenario packs, and extra civs packs. Why does it feel okay to do with Civ 5 but not with Civ 6?

Oh just for reference, this is the Civ 5 DLC page on Steam: store.steampowered.com/dlc/8930/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_V/

@GamerZakh yes, Civ5 is like that as well, but I stick with it because it already is in my library, I'm not compelled to buy another bundle again.

@@musguera Ah right, thanks for clarifying. So it's not that Civ 6 has too much DLC compared to Civ 5 but you already feel scammed with Civ 5 that has too much DLC.

Yes and don't expect Civ 7 to be 'better' than Civ 6 until 2 years in. Civ 5 took about 2 years to overtake Civ 4. Civ 6 took about 2 years to overtake Civ 5. It's like that every time.

@@Achill2105 I never said Civ 6 is better than Civ 5.

To be clear, I don't think you understand what my interpretation is, so you're disagreeing with what is likely not what I think at all.

@@GamerZakh that are not my words =)

@@GamerZakhcan you please give an insight of your interpretation? so i can maybe understand you better =)

@@Achill2105 There is very little interpretation. All I'm saying is that Civ 6 hit 100k concurrent players on Steam because of the Civ 7 announcement and is the most played one. It's just statistics I'm sharing because people don't know them.

Civ 6 has gone on 90% sale 15 times since 2022. You jumped in on this sale and not the others because of Civ 7, right?

@@GamerZakh Yes. I always wanted to try civ but it seemed it would take too much time to learn, so when I heard CIV 7 was coming and saw the sale, I aped immediately.

What about them? I played through them again recently and show footage from both in this video. I even say in the video that many still consider Civ 4 to be the best one. Civ 4 is still good for modern gaming, Civ 2 and 3 have some weird and annoying things that can get very frustrating.

@@GamerZakh Understandable. Actually, I am developing a Civ like game which would be a Real Alternative to Civilization and other similar games. I hope that you would have a better experience than Civ 2 and Civ 3. P.S. I have been playing Civ 3 and A.I. is just cheating by spamming Cities next to me.

Yeah I never said Civ 6 was objectively better, just that more people like it compared to Civ 5. I say in the video that many still consider Civ 4 to be the best.

Civ6s gameplay is the best in the series, it's really only rivaled in my mind by Civ4 and Alpha Centauri - and Civ4 vanilla is not as good it's only modding that takes Civ4 to be the best overall civ game still in my mind. Like, Civ5 is good, it has some solid mods, but Civ6 is just everything it did and more

Civ 5 also was pretty crap at release, it was much better after the expansions but it's still not as good as Civ6. Empire of the Smoky Skies and the Faerun mod are tons of fun for Civ5

Breathe

@@Bevalderon It would be for more breathless in one go, I drink deep of the wind

I like Civ 6, I actually love it, but we have to agree that the AI doesn’t pose any challenge at all. Even at deity the game is too easy and therefore it gets easily boring. The future is either a very good AI (and we might get there soon) or multiplayer. But if we want ro have an enjoyable multiplayer experience I think the developers should reinvent the mechanics of the game

That is why esports focused RTS games never make money and tend to end eventually. Starcraft 2 continues to sell because of Co-op Commanders not esports.

@@GamerZakh yeah RTS has no impact/excitement too in esport unlike MOBA or FPS

It's not Fortnite players rules, Fortnite players don't play games like Civ. It's that Firaxis was right when they said that the Civ 6 art style would age the best. Civ 6 released 8 years ago and it looks as good today as it looked on release (whether you think it looks good or bad, it looks the same). Meanwhile, Civ 5 is starting to look very dated now. Because it 'looks old', it's harder for new players to jump in and even many older players get tired of looking at older graphics. It can be fun and nostalgic going back to a much older looking game, like Civ 2 or 3, those have a retro appeal. But Civ 4 and 5 will always look old and outdated now. They're too high fidelity to cater to retro nostalgia but not detailed enough to look good by today's standards. Generally speaking, almost every game that released between 2003 and 2012 that was trying to look realistic now looks bad or at least dated.

@@GamerZakh Im sorry with this , but Civ 6 art style for me was really old and bad looking 7 years ago , and it looks even worse today , after playing Humankind , and Civ 5 from time to time.I can understand that Civ4 became old , and not that fun to play today.Civ 5 to this day looks great , and beautiful.Offcourse for me ;].but what do I know after all ;].I really hope Civ7 will try to look much more mature compare to CIV6 , and also with the great art style.Mixed Civ 5 and Humankind

@@marekkos3513 You don't have to be sorry, I understand your opinion. But it's kind of like the new 'middle poly' art style that you see in games like Valheim, the System Shock remake, and Abiotic Factor. It's an art style designed to emulate the late-90s 3D style and people love it, and those games will always look as good as they did on release. Or pixel art games. They're ageless styles. You think Civ 6 looks bad, no problem. But did you really think it looks old? Disney movies release today looking like Civ 6. Many games today release looking like Civ 6. I don't think anything indicates Civ 6 looking old on release or today. I 100% understand the hate of the style and why people think it looks bad, it just doesn't look old.

@@GamerZakh If we talking about main leaders animation , yes they look great , but if we talking about the gameplay , and units animations and art style , then it looks really bad for me.Maybe you dont know , but Civ6 should have been a moble game , but they changed that , and made it for PC.I love pixel art style games ,and I love cartoony art style games also , but Civ 6 has the art style that I REALLY hate it.Thats why I think Fortnite looks also bad , and almost ervery classic game continuation looks like a fortnite game.AGE 4 also looks cartoony , but it has that charm that I like it.Civ6 looks really bad for be , because it looks like a mobile game , not like a Civ game for PC ;].

@@Rafesco Civ 6 has gone on 90% sale 15 times since 2022. It's been dirt cheap a lot, so it's pretty clear this spike is because of Civ 7.

Yes I say the 2 years thing in the video. And we don't have the numbers for Civ 4, but it took 2 years for Civ 5 to really take off as well and it's likely Civ 4 stayed more popular. The exact same thing will happen with Civ 7, taking 2 years before it overtakes Civ 6. This is standard for the Civ series. I'm also not commenting on the quality of the games here at all besides me mentioning that many still consider Civ 4 to be the best. This is just about popularity. And more than 25% of players hate the graphics of Civ 6? Where are you getting that from? I ran polls, Civ Fanatics ran polls, there were polls on the 2K forums, and a giant Google Docs survey back in the day. None of them showed more than 25% of people hating the new style. If I can't take multiple polls with thousands of votes on multiple platforms as reasonable data, how can you just say "more than 25%" with zero data at all? It's not obvious at all and every piece of evidence points to the opposite. You can personally hate the style, I say that's fine, but don't make up numbers.

Look at Civ 5's numbers: steamdb.info/app/8930/charts/#max Launched with 70K concurrent players then tanked to around 25K for 2 years. Only really picked up in July 2013. Does that say everything we need to know about Civ 5? Of course not.

@@GamerZakh all those polls are still small sample. Majority of ppl who didn't like the game do not go out finding polls to vote, they just don't ignore the game completely. There's a lot more players that liked the game that participated in those polls than those who didn't like the game and will waste time finding some polls of a game they didn't like. And if you like numbers that much, 96% positive reviews civ 5 vs 86% civ 6.

@@narutokunnn Yeah the sample size can be bigger, but what's your sample size for 'more than 25%'? It's zero, like you don't have any data at all. You just made up a number based on 0 votes. 86% positive rating on Civ 6 yes, how do you get >25% hating the visual style? Lots of people hate the religion mechanic. A ton of people hate the Gathering Storm climate mechanic. There's plenty of reasons to hate Civ 6, don't make up numbers is all I ask. You can't say my sample size is too small when yours is zero.

@@GamerZakh my sample size is 10, my source is trust me bro. Isn't that how we're supposed to debate on the internet? :)

IV holds up, I replayed the old Civs and 3 is nice but really annoying at times. 4, 5, 6 are still good for modern standards.

The climate change mechanic is part of the Gathering Storm expansion, when you create a game you select what version of the game you want to play. So if you pick 'Rise and Fall' or 'Standard Rules', then there's no climate change in the game. If you do pick Gathering Storm, you can also set Disaster Intensity to 0 where disasters have minimal effect.

Civ 6 was never free on Steam and none of the Epic players are counted here. Civ 5 has also been on massive sales repeatedly. If you want to talk about reality, stick to reality. Epic, Playstation, Xbox, and Switch players are not counted in the Steam graph. And you can compare Steam reviews sure. Civ 5 is 96% while Civ 6 is 86%. I never said Civ 6 is better than Civ 5. But also, everyone who brings up the review score never mentions the number of reviews. Civ 5 has 120K user reviews while Civ 6 has almost doubled at 230K reviews. 110,000 more user reviews is a much larger sample size. Plus, Civ 4 continued to compete with Civ 5 just the same as Civ 5 competes with Civ 6. Many still say Civ 4 is better than Civ 5. And Civ 6 will continue to compete with Civ 7. None of this says anything about the quality of any of the games. When Civ 6 keeps more players than Civ 7 for 2 years after release and continues to compete with it until 2030, will you say Civ 6 is a good game? No, right? That's just popularity, not quality. Don't use reasonings for Civ 5 that you won't use for Civ 6. People also said Civ 5 sucked until all the DLC and expansions.

Oh just to be clear on pricing, I bought Civ 5 for $3 on Steam during a sale. The same price Civ 6 is during the latest sale. Civ 5 was also 'almost free' as you say.

@@GamerZakh You actually had good points and you prooved me wrong somehow bro :3 maybe i just wanted to justify my DISGUST WITH CIV 6, because since the day i prooved it i felt really bad with the game :/ as you said, it lacked many but many things when i tryed it like 5 years ago XD and i just stayed with that feeling... I really hope civ 7 dont repeat the recipe, because im kind of angry with the franchise rigth now XD regards and thanks for reading.

@@GatochanBolivia Hey that's really nice and reasonable of you, thank you for not getting angry at me. I'm just trying to be neutral and sticking to facts, but a lot of people hate me for that haha. It's totally okay and valid to not like Civ 6. There's lots that makes sense to dislike. Just keep in mind the formula for Civ is always the same. Ever since Civ 3. The game will release, it will be missing features from the last game. For the first 2-3 years, the previous game will be more popular while the new game gets 2 expansions. Then when the 2nd expansion releases, people will consider it 'good' and it becomes the most popular. It was like that for Civ 3, 4, 5, and 6. Civ 7 will do the exact same thing. So just keep that in mind when dealing with Civ 7.

@@GamerZakh Yeah bro, im waiting for ARA rigth now so, i just hope that game comes out good from the oven XD (i know your are suppotin it somehow, i hope you dont earn more haters if the game comes out weak) anyways, regards bro best wishes :3

Did you play the older civs? Or are you just a kid starting with civ 5?

It'll be better but don't expect 'good'. Reading about it, 'good' AI for a 4X game is technologically impossible right now.

By that approach, a ton of Civ 5 players didn't hate the Civ 5 visual style because they weren't aware there was another option. I didn't really like Civ 5's style because I came from 2, 3, 4.

What's the price got to do with it? Civ 6 is $3 right now. I bought Civ 5 for $3. Doesn't mean either is better, it's just the massive sale to promote the next game.

@GamerZakh nah it's trash based off the quality of the game. I was saying it's the most played bc it's the newest and it's $2. You don't think it being $2 has anything to do with the player count????

@@PkolGaming Civ 6 has gone on 90% sale 15 times since 2022. Of course that boosts playercount, same as the many Civ 5 sales. But this spike is the first sale that spiked up the numbers to record highs, as it coincides with the Civ 7 trailer. Sale + Civ 7 = 100K record. Sale without Civ 7? Kept floating around 60-80K. Again, I literally bought Civ 5 for the price Civ 6 is at right now. I just don't think the price has anything to do with quality, as your first comment suggested.